The Grey River Argus FRIDAY, January 4, 1946. NEED OF INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRACY.

Grey River Argus, 4 January 1946, Page 4

The Grey River Argus FRIDAY, January 4, 1946. NEED OF INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRACY.

Latest London publicity propagates a belief that the idea of a “big three” threatens to become an idea of merely a “big two”. It is hinted-that, America having fish to fry in the Far East, and the Soviet likewise in the much nearer East, Britain is witlu out influence upon either. Mr Bevin, however, is said to be expecting the United Nations’ Organisation to modify this situation. It is certain, anyway, that the “big three” talks _ at quarterly intervals are bringing no continuity in international policy," and that the participants are prone to act increasingly on their own account. It is probably a shrewd decision to allow Australia to represent British Cominomvealth interests on- the Council for Japan which Powers interested in the Pacific are forming, because Australia, if necessary, will “buck” America. Britain, on the other hand, subject as she financially has become to the United States, is disinclined to any action which the latter meantime, might dislike. Canada is in a similar position. In Europe the situation is complicated, but the Soviet has the initiative in the same way as • America haS' it in the whole western hemisphere and in most of Eastern Asia. The Soviet is the first to join up with the Council for Japan, and may co-operate with the United States, despite any possible conflict of interest in Northern China, where Americans obviously are supporting Chinese Nationalists as against Chinese Communists! A most significant development is now the stand of France for something more than mere formality by way of a General Peace Conference. America asked. if the French would countenance such a meeting being held in Paris., but the French have indicated they demur at the mere shadow of a voice for France in a final settlement which a perfunctory conference might mean when held in Paris. They prefer to find out whether such a meeting would decide matters in a really democratic way, instead of being only an occasion for the submission by the “big three” of faits accompli for all the other United Nations merely to accept mutely and obediently. There obviously are questions like those of Persia, Roumania, and Bulgaria which are still contentious as amongst the “big three”, not to mention China, and other parts of Asia. Atomic bonibs may have settled the Japanese, but the United States, while now spending herself five hundred million dollars per annum upon the manufacture of more atomic bombs, declares she wants these bouquets barred finally and forever from the gentle art of warfare. It seems a genuine sample of Uncle Sain’s “bunkum”. After going to ivar upon a pledge to defend the integrity of Poland, Britain has latterly been a target for Polish press criticism, which is an illustration of , the fact that the new regime is very definitely within the Soviet sphere, 'that the European situation is related to the Asiatic in one particular aspect is instanced by the U.N.R.R.A. spokesman’s claim that a new “diaspora” or exodus of the Jews of Eastern Europe may now be developing, for the Palestine problem remains dynamic in its bearing upon the whole region of Western Asia, and the determination of Jews io migrate in that direction prompts the Arabs to threaten economic resistance. There is a line of demarcation! ’b'etween Asiatic and European polity, in That the former is traditionally the 'more despotic, of which Turkey—nc.w in a state of anxiety as to Russian aims—is one example. The prevalence of differences after the war was to have been anticipated but scarcely a multiplication of differences. It thus seems a reasonable assumption that if Britain and France are anxious for a more democratic procedure, and a United Nations’ Orgaiiisa-I

tion which shall exercise real power, they have in actual present day experience good reasons for their attitude.